"Cap'n, could we sail out now? I hear that no one ever gets out of this godforsaken place, we're not yet in completely! Cap'n!?" Bones said his voice growing grave at every new word and at the end, he had a bit of a grim question on his face.
"Me senses say ahead, Bones. This is the razor and it shall not turn away from any part of the sea." The captain said his voice filled with quiet excitement.
"That's not good enough Jay! I say we turn back while we head are still attached to we bodies." Bone said, this time with command and a little bit of fear in his voice. 'just where the hell was this place.'
Captain Jay was upon Bones the next moment, and the ship was almost completely swallowed by the mist now. The crew looked on at the confrontation that was taking place before them and they all took it that their fate depended on it.
"This is why ye never became the First mate Bones ye don't have the adventure in ye." He spat out," let me ask ye this Bones, adventure or battle which do ye seak? We are the crew of the razor, and the razor is adventure, ye got that?" The Captain barked, his voice carrying. Rowan even felt like he could sense a bit of satisfaction from the captain, he thought back to when bones had been talking, no… challenging the captain just a day gone.
The whole crew seemed to really go quiet as no uncomfortable shifts were made anymore and real silence fell. Rowan looked at the confrontation and saw that Bones had backed away and went to sit down on one of the barrels and he didn't look angry, no… he looked confused. Rowan felt that Bones might not have gotten over his issues like he had told him and might be trying to run away from the guilt attached to his post among the warrior people, after all that was where he ran off to when his father had died.' Maybe he just wants to be a warrior like me?'
"How unnecessary, the ship could not have turned back. This thing is sucking everything in." A hushed voice said but it echoed between the mist and grew louder like the golden mist was an amplifier.
Everyone turned to the direction the voice had come from to find the first mate of the Razor James Gantor. he looked at bones and the captain then shaked his head, his face expressionless and dull, he walked slowly heading towards Bucker who just stood behind the captain.
"Stubborn Bastard, jumping right into the jaws of the worm just after facing the locker, there's a difference between fearlessness and stupidity," Abara said in a hushed voice to sharp who nodded.
Rowan walked quietly behind them and they both turned to him and he remembered the enhanced hearing, 'that's just cheating!' He cried in his thought. "What's this place?" Rowan asked the two people looking at him.
Abara opened her mouth but she spun around and shouted something instead.
"The mist is a petrification aura, use any resistance." Before she could even finish rowan could see the captain turning into gold at a rapid pace and not only the captain everybody on board except abara. Rowan could feel his body becoming stiffer and he felt fear for the first time, everyone was Turing into gold and what was the probability of them turning back? Rowan looked on in horror until the last moment. Only that he didn't quite feel dead. And he saw abara holding onto his hand before he was fully turned.
***
Rowan could feel a warmth that he had never felt before rampaging through his body and holding the petrification from reaching his insides but for how long? All he could see was darkness and he felt scared and he thought he could feel death close, rowan felt helpless and he didn't like it, the warmth that was even keeping him alive wasn't his own power and it made him feel weak, but he wouldn't complain as long as the warmth kept doing whatever it was doing, 'one could feel powerless and die that way or feel powerless and die without ever having a chance to change. I want a chance to change.' Then he felt his finger move and ignored it then it moved again and his hope blossomed, he tried moving his wrist, but no response then he held off for some time and his fingers went stiff again. It kept repeating like that over and over again until he felt cracks all over his body and with a small movement it all broke away.
Rowan stumbled forward forgetting that he had been standing and crashed into Abara, she held him in a hug and he just stood there still disoriented but he still had enough presence of mind to know what was happening, she pulled him away and held him in hands length away from her.
"I thought ye were dead boy, after ye stopped moving ye'r fingers," she said squeezing his shoulders.
"Ah… well, I thought I was dead too." He said chuckling uncomfortably, he didn't mind being hugged but now everything just felt weird, and he smiled weakly.
She laughed and turned away from him cleaning her eyes, she walked towards the other and rowan's mouth almost dropped open in awe at what he saw not because of how golden the crew of the razor looked or how they all seemed to be posing, Bones sitting on a barrel with his right hand on his sword and his left leg on his right lap, the captain Jay and his two loyal subjects bucker and first mate James gantor, the captain holding his sword with his right and looking forward like he was observing something and bucker and James looking to each side of the captain like they where searching for any would-be attacker while sharp…. Sharp was laying down by his side comfortably and rowan discovered something in their postures they all seemed to be expecting to get petrified and were in a comfortable positions. That was a good sign but Rowan's Eyes had hardly even stayed at the crew what he was looking at was the island that lay beyond them, it… it was godlike.
Rowan looked at the island forgetting the question he wanted to ask Abara. The island was golden and everything on it seemed to be built in a perfect circle, not to mention the size of the island itself, the island had three levels one was the flat surface that contained the small houses and looked like where the residents would live but it was golden. And in the middle of the island, a small mountain of gold toward above the town below and on the mountain were tall buildings maybe four to six stories tall, and on that mountain another stood no doubt in the middle and it towered above the mountain and the buildings surrounding its circular form, and on top the last mountain a castle stood it was golden but it was more than gold it shined like the sun and only its presence called for respect. Rowan looked on in awe when he discovered that the castle was the sauce of light in all of the circular islands' grace. Rowan looked at the castle again and it didn't affect his eyes as the sun did.
"Abara where is this place?" Rowan asked his voice shaking. They're ship the razor was resting on one of the docks of the island and around them was the golden mist, looking closer Rowan could see that it covered the whole of the island.
"The Golden Lord Domain, one of those places that all sailors know of but don't really belive it exist. God's, but here we are." She Looked around in fear, her hands shaking only a little more than her voice.
"But… what… What is this place?" Rowan asked his mouth dried if Abara was scared then he knew better than acting brave. 'When you see a warrior pee from fear, you both pee and shit.'
"It's an ancient place boy, a place as old as my last name if not even older a place from days of legends, a place from when men like Seth levit the unwritten and sun slayer. And Drystan Bondova, the father of the hue sun, and Rigz stormstrider, father of wars sill walked the earth, men who faced gods and prevailed, and the golden lord was one of them, Mahvaa Val'ro'gath father of Gold and Greed, Seth Levit very own familiar." She said while observing the body of the other members of the crew who still looked to be solid gold. Rowan on the other hand felt goosebumps flaring. Those were names all me had heard before names that shaped the way the world works today men that had not been men but god's in there own right. Rowan knew them by different names but men like those often had many name. 'Seth Levit, Lord of the night and defier of the sun, Drystan Bondova, He Who burns brighter than the sun, and Rigs stormstrider, Lord of a thousand deaths.' but rowan had never heard about Mahvaa Val'ro'gath. He looked at abara intently as she gathered her thoughts. After checking they're bodies she looked at the island and trembled. "From what I've heard, the Mahvaa Val'ro'gath betrayed seth levit and was sealed aways because Seth Levit could not bring himself to kill a friend. So he took a piece of land and put it on the ocean for his former friend, then he sealed him. I was never a believer of such stories, boi, but this, this change everything for me."
She said, her voice shaking.
"A familiar? And this place is a seal?" Rowan asked. He had never actually doubted such stories.
"Yeah, boi, are ye scared? The seals for the golden lord Mahvaa Val'ro'gath, I don't think it would stop us." She said chuckling,she was obviously trying to ease herself of the tension. "And about him being a familiar, I heard that he his a kind of monkey who gained satience. I just hope we don't run into him."
The gold on Bones body was starting to lose its shine and was starting to blacking like something was competing it, then it started melting, and it all sunk into his shadow.
"Lumberbrain captain, he should know these things. Don't say me didn't warn him, don't say such." He said, looking at the endless golden mist behind rowan and abara, then frowned. "Twice, twice me, warned him the last time but looking at us."
Bones said the last word with anger. He stood up. Before he could even take a step forward, abara was there lifting him up in a huge. Bone shouted and struggled, and Rowan laughed.
"I wasn't getting anything from you when I checked," she said, her voice a little lighter, more relieved. She dropped him.
"Yeah, I didn't have enough time to cover myself in mana, but my Dice Heart reacted." Bones said a little annoyed at her antics.
He looked around and stopped at rowan.
"To the locker with me, the lads alive" he said walking towards rowan and punching him on the chest. "I thought ye would be dead for sure."
He said laughing rowan. Just looked at him baffled.
When he turned around to walk towards the barrel he was sitting on rowan looked at him as he gasped and muttered something before dropping to his knees.
"I knew that I'd be rich at the end of this voyage me knew it, the sea bless you captain." He stayed there on his knees looking at the islands in silence.
Then he got up to his knees and looked around.
"Something is as wrong as the locker here, almost like in sona." He said his face grim and he looked at abara he was shaking.
"I thought I felt it." She said looking on in horror.
Rowan had thought she was shaking because of the island but it was because of something else something that reminded Bones of sona, Rowan perked up and looked around he was scared, angry and sad, but he had mad a promise to himself to find out what happened to his island and maybe the answer wasn't that far from him now.